


Eight the Hard Way

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/F, First Kiss, Oblivious, except it's more like 7+1 things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24991783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: Daphne is trying to date Amita but Amita is not picking up on the hints.
Relationships: Amita/Daphne Kluger
Comments: 26
Kudos: 66
Collections: New Year's Resolutions 2020





	Eight the Hard Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weesaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weesaw/gifts).



### one.

Amita doesn't expect to see any of the gang again, especially not Daphne Kluger, especially not in Paris, so she's pleasantly surprised when the concierge at her hotel calls her to say that Daphne Kluger is on her way up. 

Amita shoves the heel of her buttered demi-baguette in her mouth and scrambles for her clothes. She's still missing a shoe when there's a knock at her door. 

Daphne is gorgeous as ever, big Bambi eyes fringed with dark lashes, and lush, wide lips painted dark pink. Amita's lucky she's not brushing crumbs out of her cleavage and her hair is a mess.

"Bonjour, Amita," she says, like an enormous dork, and Amita immediately feels a thousand times less self-conscious.

"Bon jour, Daphne. It's great to see you."

"Great to see you, too. That color is fantastic on you." 

Amita glances down at the dark yellow wrap dress she threw on—Rose would probably call it goldenrod—and smiles. "It's from H&M."

"No," Daphne says, laughing. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Well, you look great, so you keep doing you, I guess." Daphne leans against the doorjamb. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Amita glances back at the wreck of her hotel room, clothes strewn all over the bed and half-eaten food littering the top of the dresser. "Sure," she says with a wince, opening the door a little wider.

Daphne takes in the mess with a shrug and helps Amita find her missing shoe. 

"Let's go eat some pastry," Daphne says when Amita has both shoes on and her hair covered in a delightful Hermès scarf.

Amita grins. "I know just where to go."

They spend the day drinking coffee and eating macarons and pain aux raisins at a pâtisserie on the rue Saint-Dominique and making up stories about the people passing by.

Amita laughs more than she ever has in her life, and she doesn't want the day to end. It has to, of course. Daphne has places to be that evening, and then she's heading to Cannes in the morning. Still, she doesn't seem to want it to end either, and she walks Amita back to her hotel room door.

"We should do this again," Daphne says, reaching out to tuck a strand of Amita's hair behind her ear.

"Yeah," Amita says, grinning from ear to ear.

"I'll call you. Bonsoir!"

Amita lets the door shut and leans against it. Her cheeks ache from smiling so much, and she thinks about doing it again—maybe in London, next time, or Lisbon—but she can't imagine Daphne will bother with her again. It was an amazing day and she'll always treasure it, but now that Daphne's gone, she just feels a little sad. Melancholy. That's a better word for it. She's in Paris and she just had an amazing day with an amazing woman. She's not supposed to feel sad or lonely just because Daphne is gone.

She orders crème brulee and a bottle of wine, and watches Alain Delon smolder at Catherine Deneuve on television. She falls asleep and dreams of eating croissants on the beach with Daphne while Alain Delon blows smoke at them, and wakes up feeling better.

### two.

"Let's go shopping," Daphne says when Amita answers her phone. 

"Okay," says Amita, because hello, shopping? With Daphne Kluger? In London? What else could she possibly say. Twelve-year-old Amita, who used to watch the Oscars religiously and considered Us magazine her bible, would have traveled forward in time just to slap her if she'd said no, even if that the time she'd have had no idea who Daphne Kluger even was. "Where should I meet you?"

"I'm downstairs in the lobby."

"Oh. Oh! I'll be right down." 

This time her hair is brushed and she's wearing her favorite lipstick, so she doesn't feel frumpy even next to Daphne's over the top glamor. She's not envious—Daphne is beautiful and Amita enjoys looking at her, the way she enjoys looking at diamonds or emeralds, except Daphne is warmer and less perfect, and Amita likes her better that way.

Daphne lights up when she sees Amita, and that makes Amita feel like she's glowing too. The moon isn't less beautiful because it reflects the sun, she thinks. It's just beautiful in a different way, and Amita's happy to soak up that brightness and reflect it back at Daphne.

"It's so nice to do this with a friend," Daphne says as they dip in and out of shops on Regent Street, trying on clothes and jewelry and lipstick. "Usually I have stylists bringing me things and most of it doesn't even feel like me, you know?"

"Yeah," Amita says, and then, "no, no, I do not know." Then she thinks about her mother, and all the unsolicited advice she's been given over the years about her hair, her skin, her clothes, her weight. "Okay, maybe I know a little."

"I thought you might." Daphne gives her a small, pleased smile and then something in a shop window catches her eye, and her smiles widens into a grin. "Ooh, let's have tea. I always love those little sandwiches."

"And the scones," Amita says. "I would kill a man for a scone with clotted cream and jam."

"I know that," Daphne replies. "It's one of the things I like best about you."

The waitstaff is super professional and accommodating, and Amita can't tell if it's because of Daphne, or just because they're British, and she doesn't care. It's delightful to eat scones and drink tea and pretend they're posh, and even getting caught by the paparazzi on the way out doesn't ruin things, though Amita laughs and laughs when she sees the "Who Is Daphne Kluger's New Gal Pal?" headline in the Daily Mail the next day. She cuts it out and sticks it in her purse for posterity.

### three.

Amita is back in New York, apartment hunting, when she runs into Daphne again. In the elevator of a building on Eighty-Sixth and Third.

"This seems a little stodgy for you," she says while Amita goggles at her.

"What is happening right now?"

"We're firing your broker." Daphne smiles at Meghan, Amita's starstruck broker, and says, "Thanks, but I've got this." The elevator doors slide open on the lobby and Daphne says, "Celeste, my broker, has some places lined up for you in Soho and Tribeca. Much more, you know, _you_."

"No, seriously, Daphne, what is happening right now?"

Daphne slips her hand into the crook of Amita's elbow—she smells like really expensive perfume—and says, "We're gonna find you a great place to live, so I can come over and crash in your guest room."

"Okay," Amita says, letting herself be hustled into an Uber. "Okay."

### four.

Amita isn't surprised to see Daphne at Nine Ball's place. It's a little mini reunion—Constance is there too, and Debbie, and they might be planning something Amita may or may not want to be involved in—when Daphne arrives. She's dressed down in jeans and a sweater, but every head in the place turns to stare as she walks in. Then they go back to their games, because it's still New York, and nobody wants to look like a rube.

She throws her arm around Amita's shoulders as she says hello to everyone, and then puts a twenty on the edge of the pool table. "Amita and I have got next."

"We do?" Amita says. "We do not. I am very bad at pool. I am not good at anything that involves hitting a ball with a stick, and pool definitely falls into that category, Daphne."

Daphne makes a clicking sound with her tongue and says, "You'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll beat all of you."

"I'd like to see that," Nine Ball says.

"Me, too," Amita replies.

They do not beat anyone. Amita is just as bad as she expected she would be and Daphne is somehow worse.

"That was fun," Debbie says, pocketing Daphne's twenty.

"If you like taking candy from babies, I guess," Amita replies.

"Babies shouldn't have candy," Debbie says with a one-shoulder shrug. "I'm doing them a favor."

"Drinks are on you," Daphne says, and Debbie nods.

"Fair enough."

It's a good night. Amita's glad Debbie recruited her for the Met Gala job, because otherwise, she and Daphne never would have become friends. And okay, because of the stupid amount of money they all made from it, too.

### five.

Amita's birthday rolls around, and Daphne surprises her with a weekend trip to Gurney's out in Montauk.

"They only had a one-bedroom cottage available," she says. "I hope that's okay."

"It's more than okay," Amita replies. And it is.

She could easily afford to come here on her own, but there's something impressive about the way doors just open for Daphne, and people want to please her, and they want to please Amita as well, when she's with Daphne. It's nicer, somehow, than throwing money at something to make it go smoothly, though Amita enjoys that, sometimes, as well.

There's only one bed, but it's a king, large enough that Amita shouldn't actually be aware of Daphne even though they're sharing it, but somehow, she is. She hasn't slept with anybody—in any sense—since she ditched Tinder Paul in Paris, and that's what's making her hyper-aware of Daphne, even though there's two feet of bed between them. Or it could just be that she's _in bed with Daphne Kluger_ , which automatically makes her the coolest person she's ever met, aside from Daphne.

And she knows—she _knows_ —that Daphne is more than her Hollywood image, that she likes to dip her fries in mayonnaise and she drinks her coffee black but likes sugar in her tea, and she cries at the end of _Titanic_ every time. And after this weekend, Amita knows that she's a blanket hog and that she's adorable even with bedhead and eyes crusty with sleep.

"Do I have something on my face?" Daphne asks around a yawn and a stretch, morning sunlight making her glow against the sheets.

"Nah," Amita says, reaching out and brushing her thumb against the corner of Daphne's eye before she can stop herself. "Just a little sleep, right there."

Daphne gives her an adorable half-grin. "Thanks. Ready for the beach?" 

"Always."

### six.

Amita never expects Debbie and Lou to do something as normal as get married, but here they are in Monterey, gazing out over the Pacific as Debbie and Lou promise to love, honor and cherish each other, till death do them part. Despite Lou's preference that the gang not meet up too often, they've all been invited.

"You don't seem surprised," Daphne says when they talk after receiving their invitations.

Amita snorts a laugh. "They were basically married already. This is just acknowledging the inevitable."

"It was that obvious, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. You'd have to be completely oblivious to any kind of subtext to have missed it."

"Completely oblivious, huh?"

"I just said that, didn't I?"

"You did," Daphne says with a laugh. "You really did. Listen, instead of trying to find dates we'd have to make up backstory for, why don't we just go together?"

"You want to go to Debbie and Lou's wedding together?"

"Now who's repeating who?"

"Turnabout is fair play," Amita says. "But okay, I get you. It's easier not to have to figure out an explanation for how all of us to know each other, and them." She takes a sip of her coffee. "I mean, I absolutely believe Debbie and Lou know, like, Will and Kate, but Nine Ball, Constance, and I are harder to explain."

"Maybe," Daphne says, "but you're more fun."

Nobody seems surprised when they show up without dates. At the bachelorette party, Daphne gives Debbie a challenging look and Debbie just laughs.

"What was that all about?" Amita asks.

"I'll explain later," Daphne says, but then they're doing shots of tequila and dancing on the bar, and she never does. Amita doesn't even remember until three days later, when she's on the flight back to New York and it's too late to ask.

### seven.

Daphne takes her for a gondola ride in Venice. 

_What,_ and Amita means this most sincerely as she's texting with Constance, _the actual fuck?_

 _Pics or it didn't happen_ , Constance replies, and Daphne is only too happy to lean in for a selfie, making the boat sway slightly on the water. Her smile is bright and her breath smells like espresso and Amita feels the hot lurch of attraction in her belly and the warm clench of affection in her chest. 

_I am so fucked,_ she texts, and Constance sends her a string of laughing emoji faces. 

_I hope so! Pics or it didn't happen._

Amita doesn't throw her phone in the canal, but it's a close call.

"I am so fucked!" she tells the pillow on her bed in her hotel room when she finally gets back to it after the gondola ride and then dinner at a tiny restaurant where they were waiting on by a charming old Italian man and his wife, who was luminous even in her old age. They ate pasta and drank wine and the night seemed like it would never end and Amita wished it wouldn't even as it did.

This is like every crush she ever had in college, but worse, because somehow Daphne's become her closest friend and she doesn't want to ruin anything, and also she's _Daphne Kluger_. Amita's not insecure about her looks, much, anymore, but she's pretty sure Daphne's so far out of her league they're not even playing the same sport. She's not even sure Daphne likes women like that, or that she knows Amita does.

So just like every crush she ever had in college, Amita is going to ignore it and hope it goes away. She likes Daphne too much to lose her friendship over stupid feelings in her pants or in her heart.

### eight

"So," Daphne says, folding one leg up onto the couch as she sits down next to Amita, "there's something I've been trying to tell you for a while now."

"Yeah?" Amita asks absently, struggling with the Netflix search menu. Why can't she find the movie she wants to watch? Why is it always so difficult?

"Amita." Daphne reaches over, pulls the remote out of Amita's hand, and tosses it onto the ottoman. Then she folds her hands over Amita's and squeezes.

Amita finally turns and looks at her. "Daphne. You have my attention. What is it?"

"This." Daphne leans in and kisses her, softly at first, her lips warm and dry against Amita's. Amita sucks in a surprised little breath, and Daphne licks her lower lip, not hesitant but inquisitive. Amita opens to her, the slick slide of her tongue and the heat of her breath in Amita's mouth. She pulls back just far enough to meet Amita's gaze. "Okay?"

"Oh!" Amita says, shifting her hands so she can give Daphne's a reassuring squeeze. "Yes. Yes, Daphne. More than okay."

"Forget the movie," Daphne says, moving in for another kiss. "Let's entertain ourselves."

end

**Author's Note:**

> "Eight the hard way” or a "hard 8" is a craps term for rolling two fours to make 8.


End file.
